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Andrew Wakefield and the MMR swindle

Inviato da Dusty il Ven, 25/02/2011 - 23:01
Important introductory note: before watching the video we suggest reading the article that supplies all necessary information to a better understanding of the video.
 

The study published in “The Lancet" and the allegations of Brian Deer.

 
In 1998 Andrew Wakefield and other authors published a study on 12 children between 3 and 10 years old with a common development regression disorder in the prestigious medical review “The Lancet".1
 
The development of those children was normal for a number of months after which there was a loss of acquired abilities - among them were interaction with the rest of the world and speaking abilities – together with serious abdominal problems (acute pains and diarrhoea) lasting many months.
 
For 8 of the 12 children the result of the study related the abdominal symptoms to a recent MMR vaccination2 (anti- parotitis-measles-rubella), for one of them with a measles infection and for another with acute otitis media.
 
The paper concludes saying that a link between MMR vaccine and the described symptoms has not been found as the data are not sufficient to draw such a conclusion and further studies are needed in order to verify a possible relation with the vaccine.
 
Interviewed on the matter, Wakefield stated that instead of  carrying out the combined three it would be advisable to carry out single vaccinations only with some time between them until it had not been possible to undertake more aimed studies.
 
Because of the notoriety of this study, although it was not suggesting a clear link between vaccinations and autism, was so wide in England, during the next few years the number of carried out MMR vaccinations was scaled down for the fear of possible adverse reactions.
 
Later on, Brian Deer3, a journalist with no medical qualification initially appearing to work independently, was interested in the matter and wrote a few articles4 published by the Sunday Times in which Wakefield was violently attacked, accusing him at first of having carried out the study without the parents’ consent and therefore "not ethically". Later on, in other5 articles6, he also stated that Wakefield had intentionally counterfeited the patients’ clinical files in order to obtain the wanted results aimed to develop on his own a lucrative alternative vaccine.
 
Deer then sent his documentation to "The Lancet", to the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and to the British General Medical Council (GMC), and recently obtained on one hand to have “The Lancet” recall the study and on the other to contribute to the expulsion of Wakefield from the GMC.
Various national TV broadcasters did report what happened with the result of publicly excommunicating Wakefield and his studies.
 
Knowing the stakeholders and how big their stakes are in financial terms within medical business, at a glance all of this it should not be taken as a surprise: Wakefield has actually been depicted as an unscrupulous man trying to make money at the expense of poor sick people, mainly children, therefore getting his act even more despicable. Another fundamental point to which the media outcry has given prominence is that lack of evidence in Wakefield's study has, at the same time suggesting the absence of a clear relationship with the enormous and quickly rising problem of autism and vouching for the safety of vaccinations.
 
Obviously demonstrating the falsity of a study does not imply at all that the relation does not exist (as to say that the opposite of anything that is shown as false is not automatically true), but it is widely known that logical analysis is not one of the strong points of information mainstream.
 

Parents of autistic children defend Wakefield

 
Whilst studying in more depth, some facts emerged that are little consistent with what we have been told up to this point and the strangest of them all is the full support7 given to Wakefield, to his job and to his studies by his patients.
 
One would have expected that his patients, according to Deer the first to be hit by Wakefield's dishonesty, also would have been the first ones to attack him, while the opposite it is true: not only on Facebook “Wakie”8 (as the parents of his little patients call him affectionately) has gained the maximum of friends manageable by the platform (5000—as a comparison Brian Deer’s9 page has barely a double figure of them), but also the page "Dr Wakefield' s work must go on"10 is rather popular (more than 6500 " I like it") while the page "Pursue Wakefield for his frauds"11 it does not get to 100.
 
But the really important questions to be asked are, i.e.: which are, in detail, Deer’s accusations and which are the evidences supporting them?
 
GMC and The Lancet have just assumed that Deer was right or have indeed verified those accusations?
 
Pharmaceutical industry interests, risk of getting drastically damaged if evidence of a link between vaccinations and autism is found has had a part in the sentencing?
 
Wakefield has been always available to be interviewed by television mainstream networks that have been vomiting on him only accusations12 (dealt as they were certainties) without giving to him the right of a reply, unlink journalists who instead have given him prolonged time on air, journalists like Alex Jones13 or Mike Adams14.
 

The facts

Wakefield himself, in interviews in which he could freely speak, has explained that the accusations that have been made towards him it cannot stand, most of the time for obvious reasons. For instance, the accusation of manipulation of the clinical files is groundless as it is physically impossible for him to have access to them, as they hare not held in the hospital where he works (the Royal Free that has confirmed it as the ordinary procedure held for studies of this kind).
 
Deer is also accusing Wakefield of intentionally distorting the parents’ statements: for instance, according to Deer, in one of the cases it is not true that the symptoms of regressive autism were appearing in the child after MMR’s vaccination but instead they were already present two weeks earlier when the parents had hospitalised their son for a suspect deafness, a typical sign, according to Deer, of autism symptoms.
 
Apart for the fact (certainly not negligible) that Deer, not being a specialist in the field, (and having moreover no medical competence) he cannot know which are the symptoms revealing the beginning of a regression, having a closer look of the clinical file detail it can be found that the hospitalisation two weeks earlier was due to an otitis of the medium ear in a rather advanced stage procuring deafness to one single ear (and only to that one). Those symptoms obviously disappeared once the infection was cured.
 
Just recently, moreover, the results of the study now recalled from The Lancet are beginning to being replicated15 in others countries16 around the world. A new research17 has been published in an important review magazine (Immunotoxicology) and new tests show that Brian Deer and the BMJ (British Medical Journal, an important English medical review magazine) have intentionally distorted the facts in order to discredit Wakefield.
 
These new developments convinced Wakefield to request publicly to the BMJ to reconsider their decisions and to admit to have given credit to Deer without having verified his accusations18 19 20.


Selective hearing

Many groups of parents have rallied against Deer’s groundless accusations that, besides to unjustly condemn one of the very few doctors who has been keen to alleviate the suffering of their children, has contributed to stop researching on the physiological problems affecting their children.
 
Part of them has therefore thought to meet Deer during GMC’s audiences, shooting a short documentary on the issues that GMC has purposely ignored.
 
A couple has reported to the GMC a doctor who carried out vaccinations on their son without their consent. The GMC has ignored their claim. But the accusations of Deer have been enough in order to bring in front of the GMC three doctors with no charge from any of the parents.
 
At the GMC, during the audiences for the trial of the three doctors accused by Deer (together with Wakefield also professors Walker-Smith and Murch have been accused) how come it has never been given to the parents of the 12 children of the Lancet’s study (that is a part in the cause) the possibility to tell their version of the facts?
 
Selective hearing, that is, in order to avoid considering the more contradictory facts that could shed a bad light on the billionaire business of vaccinations.
 
A dogma not allowed to be argued with.

 

Selective Hearing - Brian Deer and the GMC

(An hi-resolution version of the documentary is available for download here: http://urlin.it/1bfc6)

 

In-depth examinations (italian only, sorry): "La doppia faccia del giornalista Brian Deer", "Tutte le menzogne scritte da Brian Deer" .

English translation for "Il portico dipinto" by Pike Bishop